Welcome to the Tiki Central 2.0 Beta. Read the announcement
Celebrating classic and modern Polynesian Pop

Tiki Central / Locating Tiki / King Yum Restaurant, Fresh Meadows (Queens), NY (restaurant)

Post #125108 by donhonyc on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 8:55 PM

You are viewing a single post. Click here to view the post in context.
D

Name:King Yum Restaurant
Type:restaurant
Street:181-08 Union Tpke.
City:Fresh Meadows (Queens)
State:NY
Zip:96815
country:USA
Phone:718-380-1918
Status:operational

Description:
King Yum is one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in New York City. Tiki Centralite 'Dogbytes' posted all of the info and links to photos in his thread http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=11646&forum=1&5, so I'll just cut to the chase on my own experience there. By the way Mahalo to 'dogbytes' for his post. It was the inspiration for my trip out there.

King Yum is a great Chinese/Polynesian restaurant with great food, great drinks, and a long history in the Queens neighborhood it is in. From Manhattan the trip was easier than I had expected: take the F train to Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike, and hop the Q46 bus which boards right outside the F train stop. 10 minutes later...you're there!! King Yum has a great Forbidden City/Pagoda facade. Upon entering you are instantly greeted by a large Tiki god next to trickling fountain. The restaurant itself is divided into three sections, each one a product of expansion that has taken place over the years since they opened in this location in 1953 (!). The main dining room is made up of several huge thatched huts, complete with large tiki masks and lamps, all of this surrounds a large open area in the middle with tables and booths. In the center of the room on the back wall is a thatched stage/hut for entertainment. We were lucky enough to be there on one of the two Karaoke nights they have during the week, I'll get to the wild Karaoke experience in a minute.

The amazing thatched hut Tiki bar is in between the main dining room, and another Forbiden City style dining room, making the physical space of King Yum pretty huge. And, oh yeah..this place is pretty clean.

Now..the food: standard Chinese fare, but pretty good. Maybe a notch or two above average. Drinks: on par with the other vintage Tiki places in the New York Area, if not a little on the Rum-ee side. Not as sweet as the other locations...but very STRONG! Whoo! I had a Mai Tai, a King Yum Special, and a Zombie. Par-tay!

Now the most surreal part of this whole experience was the Karaoke. To try to make a long story short, it reminded me of something that you would see in either a David Lynch film, The Simpsons, or in the David Byrne/Talking Heads film 'True Stories'. It was truly mind-blowing, and I'm not exagerrating. The Karaoke MC was a middle-aged balding gentleman with a long ponytail and sport coat. His singing voice was reminescent of a B-grade Tony Orlando, and he was REALLY into it. Microphone techniques and the whole nine.

You could see that this was a regular important gathering for a lot of the people there, and more power to them for that! One gentleman, probably in his late 50s with a western shirt and large belt buckle, but clearly a New Yorker, was one of the first to get tup and do his thing. This was followed by several other guys and gals including one guy who was introduced as 'Captain Bob'. Captain Bob seemed like the quintessential Queens bachelor, complete with dyed black hair, eyebrows and beard. He did a version of 'Mack the Knife' that only a mother could love. Last but not least there was a woman also middle-aged, who was introduced by the MC as 'Iris'', who didn't sing...but just danced at the foot of the tiny thatched stage while other people got up and sang. She looked sort of, um...what's the words, normal but somehow not normal.

And of course the long time owner Jimmy Eng, a Chinese gentleman probably in his late 70s, dressed in a suit and tie, got up and did a Chinese Karaoke song, and then went into 'Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head'. Later when we were at the bar Jimmy came up and talked to us. A very friendly man. You can see why his business has lasted so long. On the way out Helen, who I think may be one of Jimmy's daughters told us to come back, but she added that if we wanted to come on Fridays, the other Karaoke night,we would have to make reservations because it gets so busy. It was really busy the night we were ther too. And we will be going back...for sure.

[ Edited by: donhonyc on 2004-11-11 21:12 ]

[ Edited by: hanford_lemoore - fixed broken link - 2006-06-04 12:34 ]